One in hospital after house tumbles in landslide
Source: AAP
One home has been destroyed and another six evacuated after a landslide struck a coastal hill, leaving one person in hospital.
The house on Penny Lane in McCrae on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula collapsed shortly before 9am on Tuesday.
Local resident Tanina Osborne and her husband had just finished their morning beach swim when they heard a “horrible sound”.
“I heard this really, really loud rumbling, and like a crash,” Osborne said.
“My husband and I ran across the road and I saw that this house had tumbled down the hill – I’ve just never seen anything like it.”
Advice – Landslide for the McCrae area.
Stay informed. Stay away from the landslide. The slope may continue to move for hours or days afterwards.
More details at https://t.co/K9IKYq1l02 pic.twitter.com/huymUi57mq
— VicEmergency (@vicemergency) January 13, 2025
An advice alert for the incident warns the landslide could continue to move for days.
Multiple nearby homes remained a concern and were being monitored by authorities, State Emergency Service operations manager Chris Gregory said.
“A couple of them were vacant holiday homes and others had residents who were working with councils and other agencies to make sure they have a safe place to go,” Gregory told ABC Radio Melbourne.
Ambulance Victoria said an injured person had been taken to Frankston Hospital in a stable condition.
The destroyed house was empty after it had been hit by a smaller landslide about a week before and was being monitored by geotechnical engineering experts.
Authorities disconnected utility services in nearby properties as they asseseds the area for potential danger. The Nepean Highway was closed between McCrae and Dromana.
“We do have a road closure in place and we’ll seek to lift that as soon as we possibly can,” Gregory said.
Other houses in the area had reportedly been deemed unsafe in the past year, Osborne said.
“I think that entire hill is going to have to be looked at,” she said.
“It would be an engineer’s nightmare.”
Osborne said water had gushed into Port Phillip Bay from an outlet near their daily swimming spot three weeks ago due to a water main issue on a road above where the landslide occurred.
“That could have contributed as well, I don’t know,” she said.
“I’m not an expert, but you know that whole hill just has a lot going on.”
-AAP